Deciding to test your design knowledge is a sign that you have determined to be part of the 1% designers who are excellent in their jobs in a crowd of so many designers.
Have you thought of a skill you want to acquire, and next you know, a million other people are learning the same skill and aiming for the same job role, or gigs if you decide to be a freelancer?
Giving up, however, is not in the cards for you because you’ve come to love this particular skill and want to make a name or a fortune or a living for yourself off of it.
Well, the good news is that there are various ways to stand out in your design career and one proven way is to test your design knowledge as often as possible.
4 Ways to Test Your Design Knowledge
There are various ways to test your design knowledge. These below, are the most effective ways to.
- Design projects/challenges/sprints
- Design skill Assessment
- Design games
- Taking professional certification exams
Now let’s look at them one after the other.
Design Challenges to Test Your Design Knowledge
Design challenges and sprints give you hands-on experience in designing products and this is the common way designers rate their skills based on performance. You will find that as you practice, you learn a few areas in your design skill you may not be proficient in.
For example, while working on a deesign project, you may learn that writing micro copy for apps or digital products (formally referred to as UX writing/content design) isn’t your forte. Not every company can afford to hire a UX writer, so you will have to improve your microcopy skills.
What you can do after your design sprint is brush up your micro copywriting skills. This will help you write better copy for your next project.
Design Skill Assessments to Test Your Design Knowledge
After you’ve done design challenges and sprints and you find that you have not mastered the use of colors or color theory, your next line of action would be to take an assessment on color theory to get recommendations on how to improve in that particular skill.
This may be a formal method to test your design knowledge and mostly used by recruiters, however, if you would just like to test your knowledge on specific design skills and gain insight on what kind of tests recruiters are likely to give, design skill assessments are highly recommended.
Some platforms to consider for design skill assessments include, SimplifiedUX, Test Gorilla, and UXcel.
After each assessment on SimplifiedUX, you earn badges on specific skills like visual design, accessibility, color theory etc. Just like certificates, badges validate your design skills and inform recruiters or hiring managers of your expertise.
Design Games to Test Your Design Knowledge
When you get bored with design challenges and assessments this is a fun way to test your design knowledge.
Listed below are some games we recommend every designer should try.
Shape Type
Shape Type trains you to design letters in the right vector type and shape.
Pixactly
Pixactly trains you to handle pixels with confidence and accuracy as you train your eye for detail.
Color Game
Color Game helps you develop a trained eye for color while learning how color combinations work.
Taking Professional Certification Exams To Test Your Design Knowledge
Certifications validate your expertise and showcase your commitment to professional development.
Some industry-recognized skill specific and General design skill certifications include:
- Certified Usability Analyst (CUA) by hfi training – $5800
- Certified Professional in Accessibility (CPACC) IAAP – $385 for members, $485 for non-members
- SimplifiedUX Professional Certificate – $49.99 for free users, $29.99 for pro users
- Google UX Design Professional Certificate by Coursera – Free
- Graphic Design Certification Practice Test by Brain measure – Free
That’s A Wrap
If you read to this point, you may have observed that each of these methods used to test your design knowledge compliment each other.
You first should have practical design experience or projects you are working on to know that you are not great at writing microcopy for your digital products. Then you go ahead to take a design skill assessment on UX writing to have that skill improved from recommendations you get.
And if you get bored, you can play a game to improve your color combination skills.
If you further decide that you want to validate your knowledge professionally you can go ahead and take professional design tests or exams.
Testing your design knowledge is a continuous process, even as a senior or lead designer.
You should set aside a week in a month at least, to actively learn, unlearn and relearn various design skills. Along the way, you will refresh your knowledge on skills you have discovered you lack during a project.
